Patience a virtue for Morgan as experience proves crucial
After the curtain-raiser, the AIB All-Ireland Club IFC semi-final between St James and Gneeveguilla went into extra-time, Nemo and Dr Crokes were made to wait a further 30 minutes to start their game.
Coming after both matches were delayed by an hour because of a frozen pitch in Mallow, it was particularly hard on both teams, who had been waiting the guts of two months to finally get it on.
But, as Morgan revealed afterwards, their experience with a similar delay in last year’s Division One final ensured they kept their minds on the job in hand.
“We had our team talk, we were ready to go on the pitch and then somebody came in and told us the game had gone to extra-time after we were told there was no extra-time. So, we were ready to go and then we weren’t.
“We’d a bit of luck in the league final against the Barr’s. The hurling league final went to extra-time and we had to wait around. We learned our lesson after that because we came out in the first-half and they blew us away so we remembered to keep focused.”
Morgan said there was no particular onus placed on Nemo starting the game as good as they did — they took a 13-point lead into the break.
“In every championship game last year we didn’t really go out with all guns firing and it’s not that it cost us but we want to be right for the first 10 minutes. It was a question of us acting rather reacting. In saying that, we’ve tried to do that in the three previous games and we actually started slowly. It’s not that we put everything into the first 30 minutes.
“At half-time, it was our intention to put everything into the last 30 minutes but these things happen. Crokes are such a good team. We were never going to beat them by what we were leading them by at half-time (13 points).”
Morgan writes off the possibility of Nemo repeating another barnstorming display against Connacht champions St Brigid’s — even if he himself was impressed by the array of score-taking.
“Our scores were outstanding. They weren’t exactly simple points. Some of them were coming close to the sideline and some were coming out the field. Those scores don’t happen all the time. You might get them one in five games. That sort of 30 minutes is good going forward into the Brigids game.”
Morgan played a vital part in keeping Crokes at bay when the affair was very much in the melting pot, his point-blank save from Colm Cooper a necessary one. Although, he was still kicking himself for conceding Kieran O’Leary’s last gasp goal that gave the Killarney men some hope.
“I just remember a high ball came in and it landed over the top. It was a two-on-one situation and I always knew the man was going to hand-pass it to Gooch. I just made myself as big as possible and got down to the touch. That’s what goalkeepers are there for. I’m disappointed the goal went in at the end, to be honest.”
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